The Long and Winding Road

After being in Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks, it seemed like it would be hard for any other place to wow us like they did. But the natural beauty and wonder of the American West doesn't stop with those two places. The Tetons Leaving Yellowstone, we drove south for the short trip to the Grand Teton National Park. These mountains are a true world wonder, thrusting upward from the prairie to 12,000 feet and more. It's hard to believe one is looking at a real mountain ra

Yellowstone is a huge, ancient and active supervolcano where magma isn't that far from the surface. There are cracks and crevices throughout the rock strata that allow water to seep down towards that magma, become superheated, and then come back to the surface. Sometimes they erupt with force, sometimes they just bubble, and sometimes it's just steam that comes up. These hotspots are everywhere in the park, even under Lake Yellowstone. There are more of them in Yellowstone th

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River The Yellowstone River flows from small snow-fed streams into Lake Yellowstone. It is the only outlet from the lake, slowly meandering north for several miles. Then it speeds up, preparing to take two giant leaps into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and running fast and wild for miles until it moves out of the Park and winds its way toward Billings, Montana. It continues onward until it empties into the Missouri River in North Dakota. I